Goodbye, old suitcase.

New York, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Wichita Falls...  You took our underwear and toiletries everywhere with dependable diginity.  You brought home trinkets.  You survived long, cold trips in the bellies of airplanes, bumpy rides in stuffy trunks, and the countless cloppity-clops of sidewalks, tile floors, and escalators.  You survived the indelicate probings of TSA agents, and the callous handling of many airport workers.  We're not really sure what fell out of your top pocket on that last trip home from La Guardia, and perhaps that is a mystery you will keep all to yourself.  Before we send you off to the eternal luggage carousel in the sky, I'd like to read you one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite children's books.

"Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints--and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real, you can't be ugly...at least, not to people who understand."  -The Velveteen Rabbit